By Reporters without Boarders. Published on Monday 4 February 2013. Updated on Tuesday 5 February 2013.

Reporters Without Borders Germany, Reporters Without Borders International, Privacy International, Bahrain Watch, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights filed formal complaint with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) against a surveillance software company on Friday 1st February. The OECD National Contact Points National Contact Points (NCPs) in the UK is being asked to investigate Gamma International with regards to the company’s potential complicity in serious human rights abuses in Bahrain. A corresponding complaint against Munich-based Trovicor will be filed in Germany on Wednesday 6th February.

The complainants argue that there are grounds to investigate whether surveillance products and services provided by Gamma International and Trovicor have facilitated multiple human rights abuses in Bahrain, including arbitrary detention and torture, as well as violations of the right to privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of association. They allege that there is evidence to suggest that information gathered from intercepted phone and internet communications may have been used to detain and torture bloggers, political dissidents and activists and to extract confessions from them. If the complaints are upheld, the companies are therefore likely to be found to be in breach of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, recommendations addressed by governments to companies that set out principles and standards for responsible business conduct.(…)

It outlines i) details concerning the defendant companies and their
surveillance products, ii) the human rights situation in Bahrain, iii) evidence
suggesting possible use of surveillance products in Bahrain and their link to
human rights abuses, and iv) alleged violations of the OECD Guidelines.

As part of the SpyFiles operation, Wikileaks had revealed the behaviour of these companies. Several articles can be found on OWNI website, which was the partner of Wikileaks for the SpyFiles (The media doesn’t exist anymore, but their articles are still online and free of use)